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March 12, 2006
Portrait Of A "Fascist"
So the "progressive" Left is supposed to stand for freedom, liberty and equality? Absolutely. Social justice and human rights? Oh, yes. Sophisticated and nuanced insight into the sufferings of the oppressed? But of course.
The Harbor Lights bookstore in San Francisco is famous as the nexus of the Beat poets in the '50s, and in general as a champion of the "progressive" ideal of freedom of expression--yet as so often happens with "progressive" ideals, the acceptability of one's expression is wholly dependant on the politics of the speaker.
Cathy Seipp reports that the books of Italian author Oriana Fallaci are nowhere to be found in City Lights (hat tip Real Clear Politics):
A freiend of mine took his daughter to visit the famous City Lights in San Francisco, explaining that this store is important because years ago it sold books no other store would - even, perhaps especially, books whose ideas many people found offensive. So, though my friend is no Ward Churchill fan, he didn't really mind the prominent display of books by the guy who famously called 9/11 victims "little Eichmanns."But it did occur to him that perhaps the long-delayed English translation of Oriana Fallaci's new book, "The Force of Reason," might finally be available, and that, because Fallaci's militant stance against Islamic militants offends so many people a store committed to selling banned books would be the perfect place to buy it. So he asked a clerk if the new Fallaci book was in yet.
"No," snapped the clerk. "We don't carry books by fascists."
So...I guess if Fallaci, who is outspoken in her defense of the US liberation of Iraq, is a "fascist", then the Iraqi insurgents are...what, exactly? Freedom fighters? Comrades-in-arms? Or just plain comrades? Fallaci:
To avoid the dilemma of whether this war should take place or not, to overcome the reservations and the reluctance and the doubts that still lacerate me, I often say to myself: "How good if the Iraqis would get free of Saddam Hussein by themselves. How good if they would execute him and hang up his body by the feet as in 1945 we Italians did with Mussolini." But it does not help. Or it helps in one way only. The Italians, in fact, could get free of Mussolini because in 1945 the Allies had conquered almost four-fifths of Italy. In other words, because the Second World War had taken place.
As Seipp points out, it is a rather crushing hypocrisy that a "progressive" store clerk could dismiss as a "fascist" someone who actually lived amongst the Gestapo and had friends murdered by the Nazis. And moreover, Seipp notes:
Strangest of all is the scenario of such a person's disliking an author for defending Western civilization against radical Islam - when one of the first things those poor persecuted Islamists would do, if they ever (Allah forbid) came to power in the United States, is crush suspected homosexuals like him beneath walls.
This is all rather beyond rational analysis. Is the Left really so self-hating that they would prefer to ignore the brutal torture and murder of one of their own, than acknowledge the demonstrated good works of the country they so despise?
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